For Anyone Needing Support After Losing A Parent. Very Supportive Thread

[Mummylin]

Luckily I was keeping my eye on the thread so it would of been ok. Hopefully this new thread will once again bring comfort to newly bereaved.
To the newest posters, I wish you all the best in the coming weeks / months.
And to the longer term posters, thankyou for being such a support to each other. 💐

@kittlesticks

It's been 3 months since I lost my wonderful Mum very suddenly to a heart aneurysm. Part of me is wondering how I've stayed alive really, then part of me knows I've had no choice. Would my mum be proud of how I've coped so far? I don't know. Sending everyone a hug.

It's been a year for me (well will be next week) and I feel the same.

How have I lived and breathed for a whole year without my mum? Mine sadly died very suddenly too [she was at home and I didn't make it to her in time but my dad and sister where with her]

How have I been doing this?

The thing is, I have been doing it and in the passing year I have had moments of happiness and joy.... which I know with every fibre of my being is what my mum would have wanted.

She wouldn't have wanted me to bear all the sadness and tears and anger and pain I have felt this past year. She would have wanted all the new memories and the little triumphs with the kids. She'd have wanted me to have positivity and happiness and laughter. So I won't feel guilty about taking those moments when they arise despite feeling utterly bereft and lost at times as well

Is it OK if I just ramble a bit?

I'm at my mum's house, on my own, and it's so strange and yet utterly familiar. I grew up here so every single inch of every room feels as though it's a part of me. I can remember a million tiny details of my childhood and all the time I spent growing up.

I'm trying to get rid of things and this morning I took a load of her glass vases to the charity shop....they've always been on a windowsill and yet I got rid of them. Part of me feels bad but I know I don't want them so there's no point in hanging on to them.

I'm sitting here all alone and Mum is everywhere, it just feels as though she's upstairs - the way it would feel on any ordinary afternoon. And yet, like Crunchy, I'm trying to get to grips with the fact that she's been gone for almost a year and it just seems unbelievable. That someone so alive could just disappear.

Sorry, I haven't got anyone to talk to and I suddenly felt desperate to reach out somehow.

@Brillig here for the hand hold

That's tough...are you there alone? Xx

Ah @Brillig sorry I just seen that you did say your there alone. I'm so sorry!

Would taking some photos of the items help, to make a memorybook?

I've just found a company that makes textiles (a jumper, a scarf etc) into keepsakes. If your interested I can post the link. I'm thinking of doing that for a shirt of my dad's.

He had a house full of a lifetime of things to sort through.

Thank you @Chotuladoo, it's kind of you to reach out. I think I've got a lot of things I'm going to keep - too many probably! It's just so sad. So desperately sad that she's not here.

@Brillig I'm so sorry about your day. I dread having that day and I am thinking of you. @Crunchymum thanks for the post - it's reassuring to hear how I'm feeling is normal.

Just wanted to point out we are nearly at 1000 posts here so will that close this thread off? Love to all.

I'll see if the OP is still about?

@Mummylin if you are out there could you kindly start another thread for us all.

It's been such a huge help 💜

@Galgogirl has the counselling been helpful? I'm on a waiting list. My dh hasn't been on the same page when it comes to this bereavement, not at all. I feel like I'm walking around with this enormous burden and my struggle is completely, utterly, invisible.

"Cheer up" and "why arent you happy" etc. (But I want to say I am happyish, or I'm trying? I'm just grieving, adrift, afraid .....and often just going thru the motions trying to keep the plates spinning?)

I've had a brutal waking-up moment where I realised I'm on my own on this journey, and I've had to make peace with that, just to save my sanity.

Pretty sure a counsellor wouldn't advise that approach but I'm just trying to get thru one day to the next.

Hoping there's better times ahead for you, sending hugs x

Well that’s the funeral done and I’m home after an exhausting three days and right now everything seems so utterly pointless. I’m putting one foot in front of another and probably outwardly seem not too bad but inside I’m hurting so much. We picked up her clothes from the nursing home and even just handling them was awful - so we’ve put them away for another day. Her life reduced to some cardboard boxes, it just felt so sad.

I have some other responsibilities which I can’t put away/defer or ignore and I really can’t summon any energy for it, I’m so close to walking away from them but it leaves a load of other people in the lurch and I can’t quite do it - yet.

I’m sorry for such a miserable post, I can’t see any light at the moment and am so tired but can’t rest. All last night I had the funeral service going through my head - hymns, readings and prayers on a loop.

This has to get better…..

Can I join in?

@Brillig, I have a lot of Fridays like yours. Except I don’t get rid of much. Just swirl it around.
I lost both of my parents in May. Dad at the beginning and mum 3 weeks later.

I attended an online presentation on grief and finally got my first telephone call fro a Cruse volunteer to set up my sessions with him. I hope it works as I’m so sad and frankly quite traumatised by mum’s death as she went very quickly, right in front of me.

@frostyfingers

I hope things went as all well as they could? I remember feeling just utter bleakness and emptiness after my mum's funeral. I expected to feel "better" for want of a better word but I just felt a void like I've never known.

Again things got easier but I wasn't prepared for how lost and alone I'd feel after the funeral.

Take care of yourself and know you are still in such early stages of grief?.

Shall we start a new thread? I did the the OP of this lovely thread but no response.

Happy to do it before this one fills up 💜

Thanks @weaselwords - I'm sorry you have this too. It's frankly the pits, isn't it? I've nerved myself to take things to charity shops.....a huge load of CDs she had (all given to her by me and DH); those glass vases, and today some clothes which she'd sent away for but never taken out of their wrappings and which don't seem personal somehow. There's more to come but I'm doing it little by little.

@frostyfingers well done on getting through today. You don't have to deal with her clothes just yet - see para above. Some of mum's clothes are in bags in her room and others still in the drawers and wardrobes, and I'm in no rush to face them, after almost a year.

Yes pls make a new thread @Crunchymum

Hiya, I took the liberty of starting a new thread for when this one fulls up.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/bereavement/4352163-For-Anyone-Needing-Support-After-Losing-a-Parent-Very-Supportive-Thread-September-2021?watched=1

Much love

@weaselwords

Welcome to the group we are all here because we are all traumatised by the death of a parent or parents. You are in good company but I'm sorry that you find yourself here. I joined the group a few months ago after loosing my mum she was young (66 which feels young to me) and became unexpectedly ill and died after 11 days in hospital that was 6 months ago. You do cope better through time. I remember not believing that when people said that to me in the early days but it is true. I find that the "intense" grief is always sitting there but I have better control of it well mostly unless something triggers those strong emotions which happens often.
I regularly post here especially when am having a difficult day it's always reassuring to get a response from people who are in the same situation as yourself.

@frostyfingers

I still have my mum's hospital holdall in my wardrobe 6 months on and have no idea what to do with it. My mum's stuff was also packed up at the care home and are all in suitcases at my dad's. I get the utterly pointless feelings too it can be quite disturbing at times but it does pass eventually even just for a while.

@kittlesticks

Home from a good day out with the kids. Lots of logistics to consider helped numb it - at home now I've had a cry. I see her in my minds eye so vividly. Just crazy not to be able to send her photos of the kids enjoying the day. Trying so hard for my kids, to be happy and enjoy the time with them. I keep thinking of all the times we had together - I need to be that mum for them. Does anyone else constantly have 'the final conversation' with their mum in their head? I can hear her sometimes telling me she's so sorry to leave me, I'm not sure if it helps.

Hi, my mum said to me she was so sorry to desert us all. I remember reassuring her, that she wasn't deserting us. She said how much she'd tried, how hard she'd tried to get better, but she was exhausted and couldn't fight it anymore. I hugged her and said, yes, you just want to go with the flow of it now. It was so hard, to have that exchange. I try to not go over things too much in my mind, it is so tormenting, and my mum tells me I must not torment myself, that she is absolutely fine now. But yes...I know that pain, @kittlesticks and I know it can feel conflicting. Is it painful? Is it better it could be said? Is it sad? And so on... hugs.

Thank you for your post will definitely be interested in this

I feel the same in a house I'm not comfortable with sorting out mum's stuff she passed away in march this year and still find it incredibly difficult in the evening lonely